Share of search
又称: search share, category search share
一句话解释
Share of search is a brand's proportion of all branded search volume within its category — how many people search for you versus your competitors. It is used as a fast, cheap proxy for market share, and it tracks demand rather than the visibility that creates it.
Demand versus discovery
The distinction between share of search and AI share of voice is worth being precise about, because they answer different questions.
| Share of search | AI share of voice | |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | Demand for your name | Recommendation without your name |
| Query type | Branded | Unbranded, category-level |
| Tells you | Who already has mindshare | Who gets discovered |
| Moves with | Brand marketing, PR, word of mouth | Presence on sources engines read |
A brand can hold a strong share of search and near-zero AI share of voice — well known to people who know it, invisible to everyone asking the category question fresh. That is a common and fixable position, and it is invisible if you only track branded demand.
Why it stays useful
Share of search remains one of the cheapest competitive indicators available. It needs no panel, no survey and no cooperation from anyone, and it moves early — branded search tends to rise before revenue does.
The caveat
It only counts people who already know your name. In a category where discovery increasingly happens inside an AI answer, a rising share of search can coexist with losing every new buyer who asked an assistant instead. Track both, and treat a gap between them as the finding rather than a discrepancy.
常见问题
- How do you calculate share of search?
- Take the search volume for your brand name and each competitor's over the same period, sum them, and express yours as a percentage of the total. Consistency matters more than precision — use one source and one competitor set so the series stays comparable.
- Is share of search a good predictor of market share?
- It correlates reasonably in many categories and is far cheaper and faster than survey-based tracking. It works best as a directional leading indicator; treating it as a market-share substitute overstates what a keyword tool can know.
- How does share of search differ from AI share of voice?
- Share of search measures demand — people already looking for you by name. AI share of voice measures supply — how often engines name you when someone asks about the category without naming anyone. One tells you who has mindshare; the other tells you who gets recommended to people who have none.
相关术语
- AI share of voice
AI share of voice is the portion of all brand mentions across AI answers to your tracked questions that belong to you. If ten answers name brands twenty times and four of those are you, your share is twenty percent. It is read alongside average position, per engine, across runs.
- Competitive benchmarking
Competitive benchmarking is measuring your performance against named competitors using the same metric, the same method and the same time window. In AI visibility it means running one fixed question set and recording which brands each engine names, so relative position is comparable rather than anecdotal.
- Brand visibility
Brand visibility is how often and how prominently a brand appears in the places its buyers are looking. It has traditionally been measured through search rankings, impressions and media coverage; the newer and harder component is whether AI answer engines name the brand when asked what to buy.
- Brand monitoring
Brand monitoring is the systematic tracking of where and how a brand is mentioned across the web — press, social platforms, forums, reviews and increasingly AI answers. Its purpose is to turn scattered mentions into something countable, so changes in perception and visibility are noticed rather than guessed at.
相关指南
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): the complete guide
GEO is the practice of getting your brand named and cited inside AI answers. What it is, how it differs from SEO, and the levers that measurably work.